My Dad - 1927 -2009

I haven't posted in a while; it seems like forever, to me. When dealing with sickness and loss you experience what ufologists might call 'lost time'.

My Dad was in his 82nd year. Mom passed away 2 years ago on January 29 2007. Dad passed away January 28 2009. Two years less one day. I suppose one more anniversary of Mom's death just wasn't something he wanted to deal with.

Dad had been in the hospital for almost three weeks, with pneumonia. Hospitals are not good places to be in, especially if you are sick. I am pretty sure he caught the pneumonia that killed him while in hospital, because after the first week he was actually much better and was being considered for discharge. That did not happen, at least not in the way we anticipated.

We tried as hard as we could to keep him around. That included fighting the hospital every step of the way with their 'end of life' spiels. They want you to sign the 'Do Not Resuscitate' forms about a minute after you show up, whether you've got a hang-nail or are missing large parts of your skull. It is horrifying. What is frightening is that if you start to ask questions about quality-of-life, seriousness of illness, you will find that even the staff reluctantly admit that maybe Do Not Resuscitate is a bit, how shall we say, excessive. Dad, had he survived, would not have been impaired physically or mentally. He would have needed to move into an assisted-care facility, but that is not a drastic change. It's not like he wouldn't be able to feed himself, or walk, or be able to understand us. It's very complicated and it makes me tired thinking about it, but it seems the hospital wanted us to throw in the towel just because he was 81. Really. And we wouldn't.

Dad threw in the towel himself. And that makes all the difference.